The financial liabilities that technology companies have pledged for the expansion of their AI capacity now exceed their reported on-balance-sheet debt by more than 4 to 1. Total disclosed off-balance-sheet commitments for a group of firms including Nvidia, SpaceX and Microsoft reached $4.1 trillion in October, up from $3.1 trillion in August and $1.8 trillion in June. This rise was driven by future purchase obligations, which rose to $2.25 trillion, and leases that have not yet commenced, which grew to $1.39 trillion.
Among firms that reported Q3 figures, Meta added $195 billion to its commitment total, while Alphabet and Amazon added $164 billion and $131 billion respectively. These obligations fund the energy and technical equipment required for data centers, with some commitments spanning as long as 30 years. In total, five of the largest data center operators—Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle—have committed over $3 trillion to these expenditures, with Alphabet alone pledging more than $1 trillion, an eightfold increase over its total from a year ago.